Kataros has been sentenced to death for being what she is. Siff’s in the next cell. His death sentence is for killing four soldiers with his bare hands but he has no memory of how he did it. Then there’s Skjorl, the Adamantine Man whose job it is to watch over them. In his delirium Siff tells Kataros a secret, so Kataros has to get him out and never mind that he’s likely going to stab her in the back the first chance he gets. To get him out, she needs Skjorl, even if the Adamantine Man would rather stab himself than help someone like Siff, and that’s only the start of what he’d do to her.

And then there’s the dragon.The Black Mausoleum. Someone’s going to die.

The Black Mausoleum is a standalone novel set in the same world as The Order of the Scales. Chapters 1 and 2 are available here.

Anyway, this week’s giveaway offering is Jack Glass by Adam Roberts with a really big cover picture because it’s SO pretty. It’s Adam Roberts so it’s guaranteed to be clever.

This is the trade paperback edition. Usual deal – comment on this post and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book.No challenges this week – just comment to enter[1]. Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well,so far. Oh, and these days for international delivery I’ll have to ask for a phone number as well as an address if you win.

[1] Exciting bonus goodies occasionally available but not guaranteed to be exciting. But I have T-shirts if you really make me laugh.

The Black Mausoleum was release in its small paperback form last week and I have copies to give away. This week on Twitter (@stephendeas) I’ll be playing a game of Name-That-Tune in which I quote lyrics from obscure songs that I listened to while writing The Black Mausoleum and its sequel, Dragon Queen. The first person to reply with the correct song title wins a copy of the book.

As usual, the competition is open worldwide although international deliveries may take a little time and will require a phone number (not my rule).

I’ll post the name of the songs on Twitter once they’re guessed and maybe even a little about them. I’ll be running this from the 19th March until the weekend or until I run out of books to give away.

This week’s offering is War In Heaven by Gavin Smith. Gavin bears a particular contempt for The Smiths and it’s best not to get into a conversation about them anywhere within about five miles; despite this, hasn’t yet seen fit to change his name. I haven’t read War in Heaven but its predecessor was fast and furious and very messy. Rarely have so few been shot by so many and the bit where someone gets clubbed to death with their own cybernetic arm is… well, OK, I made that up, they only get clubbed unconscious. I have to be nice to Gavin since we’re writing an SF collaboration together (about which, yes, yes, I’ll say more if no one winds me up on Twitter this week…)

It’ll be a paperback edition. Usual deal – comment on this post and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. It’s about time we had another challenge this week – suggest another fictional character who ought to be clubbed to death by one of their own body-parts and why.

You can be as rude as you like as long as you’re not libelous. The gods of random don’t care. But as before, if you make me laugh I might send an exciting bonus goody your way[1]. Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well,so far. Oh, and these days for international delivery I’ll have to ask for a phone number as well as an address if you win.

[1] Exciting bonus goody not guaranteed to be exciting. But I have T-shirts if you really make me laugh.

Someone said that on Twitter this morning and it kicked off a little bit of a shit-storm among the dragons here. In fact, it kicked up enough of a shit-storm that I couldn’t find any time to write today, even when I should, because I was too busy debating the rights and wrongs of a statement like this. So now I’m late on a deadline and pissed off.

So anyway, on a superficial level it’s obviously bullshit. I can’t find any time to learn to play the guitar but I still want to be a rock-star. I can’t find any time to get onto the ice rink but I still want to be an Olympic ice-hockey player. I can’t find the time to get out into the garden and have at it with a spade and shears but I still want a garden that’s slightly more penetrable than a mangrove swamp. It’s perfectly possible to want something and not invest a single second of your life in achieving it. I’ll hazard a guess that almost everyone wants something that they don’t even try to get (author of the above statement included). It’s not necessarily a bad thing and it’s not even delusional provided there’s no expectation of actually getting it. [And can we pass quickly by any pedantry over the use of any in the above – if you can't find any time in your entire life to spend a second of it typing a word on a page then you're not a writer? Well duh. Can we just agree that that interpretation is so patently both obvious and useless as a statement that it's not worth the silicon atoms it takes to record for posterity? Please can we? Because arguing over that would make me want to scratch out my own tongue].

I suppose it’s clear enough that a superficial interpretation isn’t what was intended. It’s an old sentiment expressed in many subtly different ways (“writers write” being most succinct). I guess (note guessing) the intended meaning is something along the lines of “Hey, if you can’t find the time to sit down and write reasonably often – even if not for very long – and reasonably regularly, you don’t really want to be a writer enough to. . .” Enough to what I’m not sure. Deserve it? Make it? Finish a novel that no one will ever see? What? What does “a writer” actually mean? Different things to different people.

There’s a truth in the statement nevertheless, for all I’m about to rip it apart. I consider myself to be a writer by pretty much any reasonable definition. It’s my full-time job. I depend on it to pay all the bills for my family. We have no other income source. I have several novels being published each year. I take on ghost-writing work when that doesn’t pay the bills. At the moment I work 40+ hours a week as a writer. I don’t have writer’s block because it’s a luxury I can’t afford. I have to be able to sit down and write whenever and whenever. I write on trains, tubes, in coffee-shops, sitting next to my kids while they watch TV. There are a lot of things I don’t do because it’s more important to write and often there are times when I’d rather do those other things, but I can’t afford to allow myself the hours they ask for [1]. I have deadlines, lots of them. People expect me to meet them. There are consequences if I don’t, largely to do with not getting paid. Stories have to be written in a certain time whether they want to be written or not. Sometimes they come easy, sometimes they come kicking and screaming but they have to come, whatever mood I’m in, whether I or anyone around me is sick or well. Through births, deaths, divorces, marriages, house-moves, you name it, they have to come. So if your dream is to be a full-time professional writer, and you struggle to find a way to sit in front of a keyboard and write, maybe that’s not the career for you. I guess that’s a part of the underlying meaning of that statement (note still “I guess”).

But.

It wasn’t always like that. I’ve been writing on and off for twenty-five years. In that time there were fallow times, years long, were I didn’t work on my stories at all. Was I a writer then? Not sure. Did I want to be? Yes. Should I have given up? Apparently not. And anyway, is that the only way it has to be? Of course not; and who’s to say what happens after you get your first story published. If confidence is an issue, maybe being published blows that issue away and you suddenly can’t stop. Maybe the opposite happens. Maybe you clam up. Who knows? More to the point, who am I or anyone else who doesn’t know you to tell you how its going to be?

“If you can’t find any time to write, you don’t want to be a writer.”

Writers write. As a statement that’s hard to argue against. Anyone who does want to be a writer, yes, obviously you do have to actually write to actually become one. Trying to find the time might be hard but doesn’t happen by itself. It’s good advice, I think, to try and make time almost every day, even if it’s only half an hour, to write if you want that dream to come true, but if you don’t, I’d still say you should slap me for telling you what you should or shouldn’t want. You have a right to want to be anything. I might not take you very seriously, but they’re your dreams, not mine and who am I or anyone else to come along and tell you they’re not valid. For some people maybe time really is a crushing issue. For a lot of aspiring writers, I’d suggest perhaps confidence is more the problem than time. Well maybe now it is. Maybe things will be different in six months or maybe not. Maybe never. A dream is still a dream and we’re all poorer without them. I can think of several people who wanted to be rock stars long ago. Now they live ordinary lives and play in little bands that do pubs and weddings for pocket change and that’s still for them a wonderful thing. I will never be an Olympic Ice-hockey player. I might, in a couple of years, play in a small team of incompetent amateurs and have a huge amount of fun. Many aspiring authors will never publish best-sellers but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. It doesn’t mean that a not-yet-expressed idea should be killed dead here and now. Maybe that novel never happens, but maybe out of the dream of it something unexpected grows instead.

If you want to be a writer, try and find a little time most days to write. Or make some notes or something to inch forward. At least do something about it. Good advice? Yes.

“If you can’t find any time to write, you don’t want to be a writer.” An insidious dream-killing cage of a statement. An authoritarian devourer of possibilities. Probably not meant as it comes across. Definitely ill-conceived. Don’t piss on my dreams, people and I won’t piss on yours.

[1] If that makes it sound like, gee, any other salary-slave job then yes, there are a lot of similarities. Do I wish I was doing something else? Hell no.

The second draft of The Black Mausoleum III: The Splintered God is done and I have written a memo to myself to write simpler plots in future. The Black Mausoleum is coming out in paperback soon and I have printed copies now, more than I know what to do with, so guess what’s up for this week’s giveaway…

The Black Mausoleum was a deliberate change of approach over the previous dragon books. Gone are the political machinations and the wheels within wheels – this is much more about survival and a rag-tag band of characters who really can’t stand each other. Probably the best cover in the series too. Signed and lined to the luck winner, of course.

You know, if you read it and like it, or read it and don’t, please put up a little something on Amazon. I try not to let the 1 & 2-star reviews that are basically a protest about not being able to get the book on Kindle in the US get to me, but actually they’re starting to. And if you know of anyone who does that, please point out that the only people who notice are the author, who has absolutely no say in what gets released in what form and what country and when, and the other potential readers. So if you like a series and you’re grumpy about it not being available, mail the publishers direct – they have the power and they don’t read amazon reviews.

Rant over…

Usual rules apply – comment here to be entered and I’ll pick a winner at random on Saturday 10th. Competition (as usual) is open worldwide. Outside Europe I ship by surface mail to keep the costs down so please be patient.